It’s safe to say the Wii U has suffered a slow launch, which is not uncommon for a new console. The trick is that Nintendo needs to garner third party support, and according to Bethesda’s Pete Hines, the company waited too long to convince third party developers to support the console.
Hines expressed favor towards how Sony and Microsoft was up front and accepted input throughout the development process. Apparently Nintendo wasn’t as upfront about the process, and according to Hines, “You have to spend an unbelievable amount of time up front doing that. If you’re going to just decide, ‘we’re going to make a box, and this is how it’s going to work and you should make games for it,’ well, no. No is my answer.”
Since the Wii U operates differently thanks to its game pad, development can pose tricky challenges for developers to overcome. Anthony Burch, writer for Gearbox, reiterated this, saying, “That’s really where it comes down to, how similar it is to what you’re doing on the other [consoles]. And we’ve got to strip all of this other stuff out to make it work and we’ve got to completely redo the controls. It’s just not going to happen.”
So according to the two company’s representatives, it seems Nintendo waited too long to let third-party developers in on the development process; therefore, developers aren’t too happy reworking their controls for the similar Xbox One and PlayStation 4. If that’s true, then I don’t necessarily blame them for Nintendo waiting too long to inform developers throughout the process. That said, hopefully there are some third party developers who are willing to create original games with the GamePad in mind.
Source: GameTrailers
